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i am a princess

I have been reading the book by my new friend, Jim Palmer, “Divine Nobodies.” In it he tells the story of his journey of shedding religion for a personal relationship with Jesus and the stories of those unlikely people that came into his life that helped him find Jesus. I have smiled, laughed and wept as I have read this book. I relate to his feelings of anguish in feeling unworthy, a miserable failure trying to come to terms with the truth that Jesus sees us so differently than what we or the world sees us to be.

I know in my heart of hearts I’ve walked with Jesus since I was a small child, long before I even fully understood who He was. He simply was for me. He talked to me when no one else would. He listened to me. He laughed with me and He cried with me. Somehow I always felt like an outsider even amongst my own family. I am not sure why and I am not blaming anyone. I just felt different and nothing I did could make me fit.

I learned early on people didn’t take kindly to you telling them that God had spoken to you or that angels had visited you. You’d either get a stern warning to quit making up stories, especially where God was concerned or the lecture of why God would Not personally speak to you. If you didn’t get the verbal tongue-lashing, you’d get “that look.” We all know “that look,” the one that stops you in mid-sentence because you are sure you just blasphamied the entire universe that God created.

So I tucked my personal relatioship with Jesus carefully out of sight of the world and tried to fit, to find my place in this world. In all my attempts to be ‘normal,’ to fit, to be the person the world tells me I must be … I never have arrived …and I always run back to Him, more broken, full of more self-loathing, my failures ringing in my ears attempting to drown out the very truth of who I am…

Divine Nobodies…today as I was reading, I went back to page 11 and Jim’s first account of Jesus speaking to him. As I read it the Lord reminded of a time when I had hid myself in the palm of His hand in the year 2001…trying to find out at 45 who I was, searching for His purpose for me. I was sitting on the back steps in the early dusk of a warm summer night watching the herd of deer that came out to feast nightly in the lush field of clover behind my little trailer where I was living at the time. I often found Jesus there waiting for me in the quiet of the early evening. Somedays I simply sat in His presence and took in the the glory of Him and basked in the joy of creation. But one night I was was once again broken…it seemed everyone I knew had it all figured out…and I was still asking…Jesus, who am I? And He spoke…

“You are my beloved daughter. I take delight in you, for you were uniquely created by me and you bring me joy! You are a joint heir to my throne. I am the King of Kings…and you are mine…You are a princess.”

Wow! That was a new concept! A princess!

I looked at Jim’s book and smiled…to this world I live in, even often to myself I may be a nobody…but to HIM I am a princess and because of Him I am free to be who He created me to be!

(thank you, Jim, for sharing your journey with the world! Our Lord is using it!)